Legends of Witchcraft
by CarmineDuvale
Summary: In a blinded post-war world, Hermione Granger's powerful opinions on equality and acceptance ensure she's not a society's Darling. An attempt to silence her forever gets completely turned around, her friends are forced into hiding and the words of the most unlikely person suddenly echo in her mind. "The Legends of Witchcraft aren't bedtime flicks, Granger" Draco Malfoy had said.


**I hope you do enjoy it and I'm seriously sorry if any mistakes escaped me, as I don't have a Beta and English is my second language. Reviews equal love so please leave them as it would mean the world to me to know what you think. If people seem confusing, I promise they will make sense soon(ish).**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I'm pretty sure I'm not J. K. Rowling , but if you insist I can check again.**

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><p>"<em>Granger changed after the war. Her sweet, homely side completely vanished. I think she just couldn't cope with life going back to normal, so she threw herself in fighting for all the wrong causes. Our society is on its way to brilliant times, but she just can see it. I am glad I ended our relationship before I could also be dragged down."<em>

_**Ronald Weasley in an interview with Witch Weakly correspondent Rita Skeeter 2 years before present events**_

The attack happened in plain day. One moment, Hermione Granger was walking contentedly beside Theodore Nott, caring her brown paper bag full of groceries and chatting about the newest discoveries in Advanced Healing. The next, they were both propelled into the brick wall across the street, surrounded from all parts by hooded silhouettes.

Hermione assessed the situation with the rapidity of a well-trained watchdog. Obviously, this was not the place to swoon and hope some dashing hero would come to rescue, even if she _would have been _the kind of girl that swooned. No, at times like this you clenched you teeth and fought like hell and prayed, with that little, minuscule, microscopic part of your brain that you could spare, that you'd make it out of it as alive as you would ever be.

Thankfully, once you've gone through a war, you cease to be the type of person who leaves their wand on the bedside table and doesn't think twice about it. No, once you've gone through a war you're terrible aware of the risk. Fuck aware, you're downright paranoid. You keep that wand up your sleeve all the time. You hug it in your sleep. You use it to hold your hair up when there's no sleeve in sight to help you out. Which was precisely what Hermione did, as the yellow summer dress she wore was not exactly battle-appropriate attire.

With a flimsy _Protego _thrown between them, she finally took a good look at the others. They were fifteen in total, more than she and Theo should be able to keep at distance for long. All almost flagrantly males, all dressed in dark cloaks that fluttered around their legs confined in expensive dragon skin boots. She couldn't see any of their faces, but the amusement, the sick pleasure that radiated from them was almost palpable in the air. Thick enough that she could have chocked on it, be suffocated by it, drown in its typhoon-like fury. She swallowed hard, feeling her dry throat constrict. Fear mixed with adrenaline ran down her spine and the same mantra sardonically played in her brain.

_This is not the war._

But they did resemble Death Eaters, from their Dementor-like appearance to the twisted sense of cruelty they emanated.

_This is not the war._

The viciousness was there. Also the feeling of superiority. Of righteousness in the face of a mute point.

_This is not the war. _

_This is not the war_

_**This is not the war.**_

She wrenched herself out of her own mind, moving on autopilot as she deflected a Reducto thrown her way. Then an Incedio. And a quite powerful Crucio. She was _not_ going to be caught under that one again, thank you very much. Beside her, Theo held his ground nicely, with his brows furrowed and his fingers clenched around the piece of wood confined in his palm. His mantra must be even most painful, she thought. His wife and son were waiting at home.

In short time, Hermione started to see a pattern in the strategy. The attackers rotated the spells from right to left. Always the same sequence. All of them firing the same two spells again and again, while she and Theo could do nothing but deflect them. They had their backs to the brick wall and couldn't retaliate or they'd be hit. The circle was perfectly thought, perfectly planned. At one point, they'll run out of energy and become easy preys. At one point, they'll be as good as dead.

And then, the pattern changed. The fifteenth, who had stood behind all along, raised his wand and fired. Thedore fell, his chest opened by the dark magic of a well-aimed Sectumsempra. For Hermione, one desperate glance towards him was all it took. A moment of humanity, of desperation for her friend, of letting her brain and heart take control of herself again, of banishing her instincts to that insidious corner of her mind they rarely left nowadays. The wand flew from her palm and she stood there, helpless, watching the cloaks advancing onward. Beside her, on the ground, Theo tried to breathe, his ragged intakes of air in perfect sequence with Hermione's heart-attack-fit heartbeats.

Something crackled inside of her, simmering and then overflowing the flesh restrictions of the body. With a silent scream, Hermione Granger lost control of her magic. And then everything went black.

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><p><em><strong>5 years before present events<strong>_

_Stupid Umbridge. Stupid, stupid Umbridge. Of course, he had always known something was wrong with the woman, what with her affected behavior and intolerance to relatively everything, but until today he had never pegged her for a true moron. From the first moment he had heard her speak, he had been aware that she, with her sweet baby voice and sickening pink clothes enjoyed being the pain in the enemy's ass; that she, with her love for cruelty and hunger for power was probably better suited for being his Aunt Bella's cellmate than a teacher in a school such as Hogwarts. He thought they could have bonded quite well actually, what with Bellatrix's obsession with Voldermort and Umbridge's passion for her __**darling Cornelius**__. But after the events of the afternoon, he wasn't that certain anymore. His aunt had little patience for plain stupidity._

_Fooled by Potter's Mudblood, out of them all! It had been so obvious to him that the show Granger had put on was as fake as they came. __**We were trying to tell professor Dumbledore that it is ready.**__ Yes, and then they were all going to go have tea with Lockheart and plan war strategies. Maybe even send an invitation to Fudge too, as long as he let home his overbearing Aurors. You know, seeing as how arresting the Headmaster might put a damper to the party. But Umbridge had bought it immediately, greedy as always to have good news for her Cornelius. Merlin, the woman was downright creepy!_

_So what was Draco doing in the Forbidden Forest looking for her, then? It wasn't as if he had liked her before today. No. He had merely tolerated her, mostly because he enjoyed seeing Potter squirming and seething with anger. And even that had been only in the beginning. Okay. Maybe only until a month or so ago. But now he was becoming anxious and frustrated. The Dark Lord was in his house, Lucius was low in his graces and with the beginning of the summer vacation approached the return and the certain initiation in the Death Eater Circle. It wasn't that Draco suddenly believed in equality or that he was ready to admit people like Granger were by no means his inferiors. He just wasn't prepared to pledge his life to a Half-Blood loon and start killing left and right. It was one thing keeping Mudbloods on their toes and another one altogether having their blood on his hands. So the faster the fucking Minister accepted Voldemort was back the better for them all. Especially for Draco. The chances for that to happen were slim, however, when Fudge surrounded himself with people like Umbridge. Umbridge who still wasn't anywhere. Umbridge who was stupid enough to fall for Granger's fake tears and Potter's shitty pokerface. Fuck Snape for making the Inquisitorial Squad come looking for them. Fuck him even more if they ended up staying here until nightfall. _

_Now that he thought about it, it was also Snape who had insisted he joined the squad in the first place. Draco hadn't been crazy about the idea, not when it meant work and being constantly around The Pink Shrew. But, strangely enough, his Godfather had put his foot down on that one. Draco had to be in Umbridge's graces, he had said, just to be covered if the situation became worse. Well, fuck him thrice for acting like it all was honey and roses at the moment._

_The sound of hooves broke him out of his thoughts and he turned around in time to see the centaur Dumbledore had hired in the place of that chit Trelawney making his apparition from behind some trees. Firenze's unnerving gaze appraised him knowingly._

"_You won't find what you're looking for in this part of the forest, young Master Malfoy." _

_Draco's eyebrows shot up at that. Impertinent half-breed, talking like they were friends and assuming he knew everything. _

"_And how exactly are you aware of what I'm looking for, Professor?" He put a generous dose of sarcasm in that last word. No reason to make Firenze feel like they could start a conversation whenever the mood struck. If the centaur caught on his intentions, he didn't let on. _

"_The stars had told that particular story many nights during the last sixteen years and they are going to tell it again and again until this world ends. You might want to go in that direction," he added at Draco's unimpressed stare, pointing west. "You'll find more than what you bargained for and the decisions you'll take might not be the right ones but the Universe is bowing in front of you and is letting the choice in your hands."_

_Was this one high on the smoke of the fires in his classroom? Or was he simply pointing out that he'll find Potter and Granger with Umbridge and doing it in a supposedly prophetic way? Nonetheless, when he heard Firenze walk back towards the castle he took the road pointed to him. It was as good an option as any and, quite honestly, what did he have to fucking lose?_

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><p>The first time she woke up, she couldn't open her eyes or move her limbs. So Hermione stood helplessly, lying there, with her memory fuzzy and her body aching, listening to voices.<p>

"I can't believe Mister Potter didn't even show up," one of them, high and annoyingly pitchy, was saying.

"I don't see why he would. She's barely worth it after what she did to them two years ago."

The other one was definitely male, deep but quite monotone, answering with a definite hint of superiority in the tone.

"I always thought she would have gone crawling back to Weasley by now. She can barely hope to get such a catch again. I've seen how she usually dresses. So sloppy and conservative. Like a librarian or a would-be nun."

There was the pitchy one again. Could she do it, Hermione would've rolled her eyes. Twice.

"There's no wonder he left her. The slut."

Make that thrice. These people did not make any sense, with their prefabricated opinions and their perception of her took straight out of a Rita Skeeter article.

"Did you give her the vitamins? And the Calming Draught? You know what Healer Abbot said."

So she was at Saint Mungo's. There were worse place to be in, Hermione rationed. At least this people had taken an oath. As much as they disparaged her, they would not interfere with her recovery or try to wound her even further.

"I skipped the Calming Draught. She can take a little pain, can't she now?"

Stretch that. They definitely would do it.

The second time, she still couldn't open her eyes, but she could move her feet a little bit and twitch her fingers. The relief didn't last long. The memories from the attack started coming back to her in little fragments and pieces, her drained body started trembling and her heart seemed to race toward a finish line that could only be the beginning of a panic attack.

Then slim cold fingers touched her forehead and a hand rested atop her heart and a sweet, calm voice murmured:

"It's okay, Hermione. Go back to sleep, darling."

And she drifted off again.

The third time she woke up, her eyes popped open and she was momentarily blinded by the abnormal white lightning of the room. She blinked and blinked and blinked some more, trying to get rid of the colorful sports that dance in front of her. That's when Daphne's form became clear and, once again, everything came rushing back.

"Theo" she gasped. "Is he well?"

Daphne nodded once and kept scrutinizing her with a wondering glance as a worried Hermione bit her lower lip softly. Through the crack in her skin, blood flew into her mouth.

"What the…?" she murmured.

"Theo is fine, Hermione. They brought him back with just a spell and a few Blood Replenishing Potions. But I'm more worried about you right now, to tell the truth."

"Why?" she mumbled, accepting the napkin she was handed and wiping the red liquid sputtered on her face. "What happened there? How did we get here? Did someone help us after all?"

She could still see people running away as they were being surrounded.

"No." Daphne was fiddling with her hands nervously. "Here. I think you should see this."

She took the copy of the Daily Prophet she was being handed and examined the first page in disbelief.

**HERMIONE GRANGER ATTACKED IN PLAIN DAY!**

**SUPPOSED WAR HEROINE CAUGHT IN DIAGON ALLEY ALTERCATION WHILE IN COMPANY OF EX-DEATH EATER! **

**HALF-BLOOD EXTREMISTS OR CONCERNED CITIZENS?**

**WEASLEY BREAKS THE SILENCE IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!**

**POTTER REFUSES TO COMMENT!**

"What the Hell?! What's this gibberish about concerned citizens? Of course they were Half-Blood extremists. I'm sure of it!"

Her eyes quickly scanned the following article, growing bigger and bigger by the second.

"And I believe you. But no one else will. You know that Half-Blood extremists could as well not exist for the Ministry. And worse, people think you orchestrated in all to get in the public's graces again."

"But that's preposterous!" she sputtered. As if she had ever been in the public's so-called graces to begin with. First as the Triwizard Tournament's Seductress and then as the Girl Who was Left by Mighty Hero Weasley (even if she had done the leaving in the first place), the masses had never liked her. It was the price someone paid for being the female party of a predominantly male trio and, until a few years ago, Hermione hadn't minded paying it.

"I know, Hermione! But they don't. Don't you see? They want their little world to be perfect and don't even realize how prejudice has crawled into their lives once again."

She didn't have to be the brightest witch of the age to guess Daphne was talking about her and Theo's son. Not when it still made her heart give a lurch to think about his birth and the unwanted media attention it had caused.

"And you're too vocal for their liking. Shouting their mistakes for the rooftops. Befriending Purebloods. Moving on from Weasley and Potter. For Haven's sake, you accepted to be Orion's godmother. When me and Theo asked you, we didn't really believed you'd leap at the chance! You are aware, I hope, that this is part of why you are socially shunned. Now, they got the chance to walk all over you and, make no mistakes, they will. "

The silence that followed was deafening, the words echoing in their minds. Hermione simply had to brake it.

"Daphne, how did we get here?"

Daphne took a deep breath, as if to calm herself.

"You had a fit of accidental magic. That's why all the wild tales started flying around. The Aurors have the attackers in their custody, but it won't do you any good. You destroyed the place and… you wiped their memories clean. They don't even know who they are."


End file.
